Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Putin campaign stop

Now that he has domesticated opposition parties in place, Putin is campaigning. It's still unclear what office he's campaigning for.

Ahead of Election in March, Putin the Reformer Steps Up

In what appeared to be a calculated pre-election appearance, Prime Minster Vladimir V. Putin on Friday reflected on his 11 years in power and acknowledged that elements of the system he created needed to change.

Mr. Putin, meeting with factory workers in Magnitogorsk, an industrial town in the Ural Mountains, said that authority in Russia had become too concentrated and that some leaders had become ineffective and “calcified.”…

But with a presidential election looming in March — and little indication of whether he or President Dmitri A. Medvedev will run — Mr. Putin did not suggest that he was thinking of stepping aside. Indeed, he seemed to be sketching a portrait of himself as a leader: salty, maybe a little bit crude, but ultimately in tune with the Russian people.

When an engineer asked what qualities he should teach his son so that he could become president, Mr. Putin said, “Decency.”…

Mr. Putin’s appearance in the workshop of a large metals factory had all the trappings of a campaign event. And many of his remarks, along with the questions from workers, seemed tailored to present Mr. Putin as a tentative reformer…

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Labels: campaign, leadership, politics, Russia